‘They beat me because I looked at their faces,’ the victim said.
A group of four women and girls who were allegedly filmed beating a 14-year-old girl in Tangyan have been arrested after the victim’s family opened a case to find the perpetrators.
Teenagers stripped and beat Nawng Seng Moom at around noon on July 7 near the Kyauk Tawng Chinese spiritual house in the town of Tangyan in a clip that has since gone viral on social media.
Reporting from Tangyan, SHAN journalist Nang Seng Hom said that the teens who were arrested on Tuesday had affiliations to a gang which goes by the name “WY.”
“There are seven members, about 17-19 years old,” she said of the gang, formed around two years ago. “Currently the police have arrested four girls, but three escaped.”
Nawng Seng Moom spoke to SHAN, and said that she had no idea why she was targeted and that she did not know the perpetrators.
“They called me on the phone—I refused to go. They told me, ‘if you come to see us today, we won’t beat you.’ So I went to see them with my friend,” she told SHAN. “When I met them, they beat me, because I looked at their faces. Many people saw that they were beating me. Nobody helped me.”
She added that the teens threatened they would kill her if she told her parents what had happened to her.
“I feel dizzy, because they hit me on the head,” Nawng Seng Moom said.
A police officer told SHAN that law enforcement “would try to get justice for the victim” and that this would lead “the other girls to control their violent actions.” He added that another three girls reported being beaten in Tangyan by the same WY gang on the afternoon of July 7.
Four teenagers are detained in the police station for their alleged involvement in the attack. Nawng Seng Moom’s family have asked that the other girls and women who participated in the beating also be taken into custody.
